If you have an Android device, you may be able to rig Termux up to do that,
of course it'd have to use Fenrir or another screen reader, or Emacspeak
with ESpeak, but I think it'd doable.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@xxxxxxxxx
On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 9:52 AM Patrick Smyth <patricksmyth01@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi Devin,
This is a really interesting and encouraging thread. I do most of
my day-to-day in Emacs and have always really wanted to some way
to take Emacs with me and use it on the go, especially since I
feel I keep about 10% of my brain in org mode. Is there a modern
device that would let me do this in some form? What's your
recommendation? Or will I forever need to sit at my computer to do
certain kinds of work?
Best,
Patrick
Devin Prater <r.d.t.prater@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
And I fondly remember the Braille Plus, that lovely Linuxhttp://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/devicedoc/Atmel-11269-32-bit-Cortex-A5-Microcontroller-SAMA5D3-Xplained_User-Guide.pdf
powered PDA. I
loved that thing, and it's where I first found Emacs. :)
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@xxxxxxxxx
On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 4:50 AM Tamas Geczy <gt1991@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hello everyone,
I now see what Ken has said on this mailing list and can agree
with it
100%. There are two new equipment purchases which lead me to
this
conclusion.
The first is one of the new Humanware Brilliant BI 40x
displays. APH
is selling the Mantis, but unfortunately (for me ) this has
QWERTY
input, and I wanted the standard 8-key type. It's clear to me
that the
Chameleon 20, Brilliant 20 are the exact same display, except
that APH
is able to provide a lower cost to consumers by providing the
Chameleon under their name. This was similar to the PlexTalk /
Bookport situation. I burnt out the book port by accidentally
plugging
in both the AC adapter and USB cable. Not a good idea, kids.
Some
devices just don't turn off charging on both, and that can fry
internal things. So went the Bookport, but I did find a
PlexTalk as a
replacement for it. So there's that.
There is, however, a big difference between the era of
yesteryear and
the one of today. The Plextalk / Bookport used same firmware
structure, but both had different firmware files which could be
loaded
on your model. The Plextalk was used internationally, so a lot
of
European countries saw it, whereas the Bookport + was a U.S
exclusive.
Either way,
today we are faced with a world where both the APH devices and
the BI
40X models can use the same firmware file. They can run the
same
build, and each will display their own hardware-driven
differences,
such as Keysoft Light being used on BI 40X, but Mantis/
Chameleon
hiding those Keysoft things and presenting people with the
right user
guide for their model.
How is this done? Surprisingly, the firmware for these devices
is more
open than custom-built Humanware Apex arm platforms of the
past, or
even the Everest-based bootloader boards used by a BrailleNote
touch.
They use simple .tar files for the filesystems, but there's
good
signature verification on these files so you would need to
generate
with keys you don't have if you were to tinker with the
package. From
the get-go, the thing I liked and what surprised me is just how
much
security is still considered in these devices, but we'll get
into this
later.
Either way, I found a few surprises hidden in there. I can tell
you
that the entire E-Speak speech synthesizer is in the current
firmware,
indicating to me that they may expand full speech functionality
(or at
least for book reading if not full speech) using Mbrola based
HMM
synthesis technology. This is present today, just not
activated. There
are also a bunch of sample .mp3 files in the root user's home
folder,
which appears to be used when you get these things in a
diagnostic
mode. (that part is still hidden to me, which is good as again,
it
shows how well they can still restrict security on a Linux
environment.)
This presents a huge opportunity for expansion in the future on
these
devices. I found out that the way they can code for knowing
which you
have is simple. These devices are built on off-the-shelf
hardware.
Specifically the SAMA5D3 Xplained User Guide -
Atmel-11269-32-bit-Cortex-A5-Microcontroller-SAMA 5D3
breadboard. This
is amazing. In fact, you can view the entire spec sheet for it
here:
So, we can tell many specs of the hardware right off the bat,
and that
standard off-the-shelf parts power them, including a Cortex A5
chip
and at least a gig of Ram. In their Linux implementation,
there's a
/dev/brldsplay (or something similar, perhaps
/dev/brailledisplay)
which drives the Braille output at all times. This is also how
the
"recovery mode" prompt can be displayed by the bootloader.
These
breadboards appear to have either 1 or 2 gigs of ram, and they
pair it
with various Bluetooth chips in the hardware difference
process:
Bluetooth 5 for the BI 40x only, 4.2 for Bi 20x, Mantis,
Chameleon.
What's interesting is that the famously talked about NLS
ereader is
based off this same series also. This means that the EReader
(as it is
known internally) has a 20-cell display (just like Chameleon,
Bi 20X)
and an exactly identical interface / firmware to these devices.
The
difference? Only the BARD online service will be accessible on
them
with the "online services" menu.
That's right, here we get into more interesting things. The
Chameleon
right now excludes the BARD service, and it's a curious
omission.
Perhaps agreements had to be made since the NLS product will
have that
service, and it's exactly the same looking device. Either way,
all APH
would have to do is to flip the switch on the menu item for
Mantis and
Chameleon users, and they would get BARD listed. But at this
point,
this could also undercut Humanware's products, although the
Mantis
never will as it's the QWERTY brother to the BI 40x. However,
today,
the Chameleon is about $300 cheaper over the Bi 20x, and the
only
thing you miss out on is the BARD service. I've heard rumblings
from a
few people that BARD support may still ultimately arrive on the
APH
devices, and I think it should considering how many students
may need
that support for their textbooks.
The other device I was able to acquire is an embosser. I'm
still
looking for tactile graphics to use which are good to print,
but this
can open up a bit more opportunities for me as well when it
comes to
creating diagrams of things. One device that came with the
embosser is
the GoBraille
You might be a bit surprised to know that the GoBraille is
built on a
Raspberry Pi. That's right. When I saw the layout of the board,
I
instantly knew. It has 4 USB ports + ethernet on the left,
Micro-USB
in the back, standard HDMI in the back. Oh, and it announces
its IP
address from the headphone port. How cute.
In a way though, you're also paying for the formatter and
embosser
interface + custom drivers all that could require to print
Tiger
graphics. Certainly making it air-print compatible over CUPS,
configuring how the embosser's Graphics VS text mode will work,
all of
that requires a bit of custom coding. The frontend to the
LibLouis
translator through the GoBraille web interface, it being able
to
translate text when it comes across wireless printing, and
configuring
the Wi-fi over Wi-fi direct + other extras that make that
device user
friendly. Still, it's built on off-the-shelf hardware. And
that's a
bit remarkable.
So Linux does have a huge place to carve out in the future of
assistive technology. I think many more things to come will be
built
either atop Linux or Android, and this will propel them into
the
future where more modern hardware can e used within these
devices,
rather than hardware that's a few years old already by the time
they
get to design all the custom motors and servos and whatever
else to
interface with it. I know they have built .so Linux libraries
which
drive some of this now, which opens up a potential of re-use or
easier
re-configuration to fit a wide range of Linux hardware.
Just don't be surprised, because that Linux revolution is
already
here, and we live among it. Now I just wish I could somehow
localize
or help localize the Chameleon's or Bi X series firmware into
Hungarian. That would be amazing.
Sincerely,
Tamas
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===========================================================
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Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/raspberry-vi
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-----------------------------------------------------------
Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the
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This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and
the views and attitudes expressed by the subscribers to this
list do not reflect those of the Foundation.
Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
